


Stab-Family

by yorkisms



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Clones, Continuity What Continuity, Discussions of transitioning & transphobia but not the focus of the work, Family Bonding, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Having kids and all that entails, Introspection, Overuse of artistic license, Themed Shortfic Collection, Trans Male Character, mild misgendering/deadnaming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21897373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yorkisms/pseuds/yorkisms
Summary: Logan once said he doesn't want kids, like, ever. Saying that when you're an angry and confused child is one thing, staring down reality is a whole other animal. Actually, a whole otherfamilyof animals. No pun intended.
Relationships: Gabrielle Kinney & Laura Kinney, Laura Kinney & Logan, Logan (X-Men) & Gabrielle Kinney, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	1. like looking at a picture

**Author's Note:**

> I made a Stab-Family playlist (yes, that's what I'm calling them) on a plane the other day, and it's been kicking around in my head for a while since I write Logan as so aggressively trans-masculine how weird it'd be to see the Kinney sisters. 
> 
> My personal continuity because I am allergic to consistency except when it's my own.
> 
> This is a collection of flash fiction snippets that I write when the mood strikes and post for fun. This can be set in the universe of _Internal Communications_ but the two aren't massively interlinked apart from Logan being trans, Laura and Gabby being his problem at the mansion, as well as allusions to him being in a polyamorous triad with Jean and Scott. That said, it's intended to be about the Stab-family, and other things will only be incidental.
> 
> NOTES EDIT AS OF 2/16/2020: I do NOT consent to this work being ripped and posted to unofficial AO3 apps. AO3 has a good mobile web browser interface. If you want to interact with this fic somehow (eg official translations) then contact me using the information in the end notes or a comment. I know this fic is on some unofficial apps. **I was not asked, nor do I consent to this.**

Logan's memory _sucks_. Everyone knows it. It's absolute garbage, and you'd be better off asking anyone else about the past.

The secret that he keeps is that some things are too integral to forget. It's not always people. Actually, it's never people. He likes to think that if his mind gets wiped one more time he'd find a stirring of familiarity in Jean's voice or Scott's smile, but it's probably not true.

The things that are important, or, the thing that matters most right now, is this:

He is different. He's been alive so long there wasn't always a word for it. This sticks in his mind, that nobody should know. If they know, and he doesn't remember them, they are dangerous. This knowledge comes with muddled memories of being forced into small pink dresses and being told _Just be a good girl for once, ---?_ He hates it. It makes his skin fucking crawl. The second, related thing he always knows: Whatever that memory is, he is not that person, and never fucking was. He is the animal, he is the man, whatever he is it isn't the tightening of a corset around his ribs when he started to grow. Logan always gets a better idea of who he is by remembering firstly who he isn't.

He's done everything to shed the past. Burned every record from Weapon X, brought low anyone who knew without his explicit permission. Only one remains, but that is Creed, and it will be a long, long time before Logan ends him or before Creed tells. He likes having that- the last thing he can hold over Logan's head. _I know you. Don't I, ---?_

Still. There is a difference between standing across the battlefield from the last person alive who holds a secret you didn't give him permission to keep, and standing across a room in the mansion from two kids who wear the face of that person that you once wore the mask of.

The taller one- Laura, someone said- looks at him with weary eyes. And the worst part is, that Logan knows those eyes, because they're fucking _his._ Not just the same color and the same face, but the same exhaustion.

It looks like they took that kid version of him and ran it through all the stuff the adult got to enjoy, and he hates it.

"We think it would be best if Laura and- Gabby?"

Laura nods.

"Gabby. If they stayed with you. Since their powers are closest to yours, you're the ideal person to manage them. Unless you don't feel-"

Logan cuts Hank off with a noise in the back of his throat.

It may be spine chilling to look right into his own face, but he's not leaving kids who've seen a fraction of what he has alone.

"I can handle it." It comes out in a rush, ferocious and protective. He feels like a hypocrite.

_You're going to have children one day, ---! What will you tell them?_

_I don't want to have kids! I'm never going to have them! I'd rather die!_

Life has a way of making you eat your words. He's found it out in person over the hundreds of years.

Laura looks at him inquisitively, curious about his tone. They're him, after all. Sure they can smell any of it.

"I'll take care of them." He flicks his eyes away from the little visions of the past to his present, who are watching the stiffness in his shoulders and the clench of his jaw. "Gonna need a sleepin' bag or something in my room. Stat."

\--

It's the little one, he thinks. Gabby. She's young, maybe four or five, and Laura always keeps Gabby by her side without question. One arm out. Claws itching. He knows the feeling.

He doesn't try to make them talk. They are, in a way, him, after all. The way Laura watches him watch over them, he thinks she can probably see it in his eyes, that he's trying to figure out how to get past his thoughts about them.

Gabby's less traumatized than Laura. She's more like a normal kid, but Laura keeps her in line well enough.

Gabby crashes early when she's energetic. She almost reminds Logan of _another_ mutant with a healing factor who exists because of him.

Laura looks up from petting her sister's hair and stares at Logan with those hollow, seen-some-shit eyes.

"I understand," she says, quietly. "It must…be strange, to see yourself. Or…a slightly edited version."

"No edits," he says, plainly, because there's no point beating around the bush with the kid. She looks confused.

"But the scientists said- something about a missing Y chromosome, or-"

Logan barks out a laugh. "Idiots didn't dig deep enough. There ain't one."

Laura sits back a bit, looking confused, trying to figure out what he's saying without a world of experience at hand. Logan watches her carefully, before she finally replies.

"Then it must be weird. Looking into what might have been."

"What wasn't meant to be, least not for me," he replies. He looks at Gabby. "And what definitely was."

Laura nods thoughtfully.

"I'on't hold it against you, mind," he says, because normally he doesn't like talking, but it's something Laura damn well needs to hear. "Just hard. But I went through half a what you did when I had about a hundred years of living down. You don't need my crisis, ya need…help." When he was in the same place, he had tried to brush off help, but he was also a grown man. Laura's ten. It's a world of difference.

Laura doesn't know what to say to that. She lowers her eyes.

"I don't want to be defined by being you."

"You're already not me," Logan points out, turning to the door to his room. "I'm going down the hall. Lock the door after me."

He waits until his ears prick at the sound of Laura turning the bolts before truly leaving.

His partners try their best to take his mind off of things, but it's only a temporary salvo. He stays through half the night, and even after they're both dozing with their arms around him he thinks about Gabby Kinney and that odd little representation of the young girl he killed those many years ago, the one who haunts his step no matter how many lost memories- the caterpillar before it wove a cocoon.


	2. head up, eyes on me

Laura's got his instinct.

Logan isn't going to teach Gabby to fight quite yet, because she's five, and she just needs to learn a little more about herself and have a life outside being a lab experiment.

Laura, on the other hand, doesn't get that luxury. She's aware of it, and so is he. He stands across from her in the Danger Room. He had Scott clear everyone out. It's father-daughter time. Sort of.

"Alright. I'm gonna teach you how to fight."

"I know how to fight," Laura says. Logan shakes his head, because she sounds like him at that age as far as he recalls.

"No, ya don't. You know how to survive in a lab. That ain't the same thing."

"What's the difference?"

"In a fight, the goal isn't to simply put the other guy six feet under, it's to get out of it any way you can. Death, KO, stun, it doesn't matter, you come out on top." Logan cracks his knuckles. "Claws out. I'm going to show you some basics."

Laura tilts her head, and they both unsheath their claws. Logan nods, before getting into a stance. "Instinct gets you part a the ways there, it ain't going to do all the work. You gotta have an idea of what you're doing, you gotta know how to drop anyone you meet, and you gotta practice your ass off."

"Do you practice?"

"Just about every day." Scott likes to spar in the evenings. Jean sometimes, too. Laura seems to believe that.

"Arm out. When you use your claws to damage, you want to keep it similar to throwing a punch. Keeps your hand in one piece. We can take it, but it's easier to avoid injuries you don't need. Just because you can take a hit doesn't mean it won't hurt." Laura imitates his stance. He nods, and adjusts her positioning slightly. "Tighten up. The point is to be ready to move whenever you want." He pauses. "Now. If you drop your arms, put away the claws, and keep your legs like that, you're ready for a fight to break out. See?"

Logan learned how to fight on the fly. According to the more traditionally trained he's met, his form is terrible. He gave Scott a damn headache when they first met. He remembers a town in the frozen north, a guy who had started to suspect more than he should have, and called him a pussy. Logan didn't hesitate then, throwing a punch at the same time his opposite knee came up for the blow. Blood spattered onto the permafrost. No one talked to him after that without being spoken to first.

"You do that a lot," Laura says.

Logan snorts. "Imagine I do."

She looks at him, with her Victorian ghost-child eyes.

"You do that all the time." Maybe he does. The world's a terrible place. If he had any choice in the matter, he doesn't think he'd've brought Laura into it. But it's too late for his thoughts on life. He's got a kid in front of him, and he needs to do better at explaining to her the things he wishes he had told the kid who didn't hesitate to spread drops of any old dickhead's blood across the Yukon snow.

"Sometimes you need to be ready for a curveball."

"Even in here?"

Shit. He has to choose his words carefully, now. "Lot of real bad people would love to get in here and run the place. They can try at any time, but that don't mean that the folks here aren't the safest folks to be around." He pauses, showing Laura how to form her fist to throw a good punch. "They'll make sure anyone who tries regrets it."

"So then why are you worried."

"Doesn't do to get too comfortable," he replies. "People like us, there's always someone looking. There's always a fire about to break out. I can't stop it from happening, all I can do is tell you how to deal with it."

"Any situation?"

"Just about anything."

"Why are you doing this?" Laura asks, confused with what he's doing for her. "I don't want to be like you."

They both know she's saying it because she wants it to be true, in some regard, to own herself in a way no one ever intended for her to.

Logan pauses, leaving the words in the air for a moment, then unsheaths his claws. Laura lowers her eyes. He exhales, then puts the back of his claws under her chin to grab Laura's attention.

"That's a good thing, kid. Now. First thing is knowing how to throw that punch the right way. Head up, eyes on me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was the victorian ghost child me all along, father? 
> 
> fic facts: this short was chronologically the first part of this concept. specifically, the dialogue "i'm not like you"/"that's a good thing. head up, eyes on me." I ran with it further than I anticipated I could, including edits to the actual tenses and phrasing of the dialogue. I felt so into it that it took forever to edit and I still don't know how I feel about it, but I can't name anything WRONG with it so here it is.

**Author's Note:**

> Artistic note: use of "---" denotes Logan being deadnamed. I do have a headcanon for that, but it felt better to censor it. After all, he's kept it quiet for a reason. 
> 
> tumblr: maggie-wittington 
> 
> Tumblr's where you can find me for requests, to pick my brain for more flash fiction ideas, etc, etc. Every little bit of interaction helps me get better at writing!


End file.
